The jury found that Johnson raped and killed Alexander Ratteseen in his mother's Conway-area apartment southeast of Orlando last July 24. Johnson had been dating the boy's mother, Sherry Meeks, for about three months.

During the three-day trial, Meeks testified she found Johnson sitting on the boy's bunk about 1 a.m. The boy was clammy and scared, but wouldn't say what frightened him.

Meeks said she and Johnson then went to bed. At 7:15 a.m., Johnson awoke Meeks to tell her that Alexander wasn't breathing. He was pronounced dead at a hospital a short while later.

An Orange County deputy medical examiner testified that the boy died of blows to the head administered between 3:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. An autopsy showed evidence of sodomy, as well as injuries around the mouth.

Both Meeks and a babysitter testified they had noticed nothing abnormal when they changed the boy's diaper earlier in the day. A semen stain was found on a blanket in the boy's room, but testing did not reveal from whom it came.

Johnson testified that he never touched the boy. He said he awoke on the morning of the killing about 6:30, walked a dog, then watched television before finding the boy.

His attorney, Robert Nesmith, argued the evidence was too sketchy to prove that Johnson was guilty. But prosecutor Dorothy Sedgwick argued that no one else could have murdered the boy.

Meeks called the verdict a relief.

''He was my baby,'' she said. ''He was a beautiful boy, so full of life, and he had that taken away from him. I haven't been able to let go of that. Maybe now that we have this verdict, I can let go.''

Both crimes carry a mandatory sentence of life in prison. The only question is whether the terms will run together, meaning Johnson would serve 25 years before he is eligible for parole, or consecutively, meaning he would have to serve a minimum of 50 years. No sentencing date has been set.